Posted on Thursday 26 January 2006 to unknown
It had a plat of a Chinese compass imprinted above center. In the upper right-hand corner of the map are six Chinese characters, which together mean "general chart of the integrated world".Now I don't know if it's just me or perhaps it's Liu Gang's translations but I can't help thinking that these quotations sound just a little too pat to be convincing. In fact its sounds like the map maker is trying to be convincing and the result is that something about them just doesn't ring true. Instead I find myself leaning towards the opinion expressed by Geoff Wade who thinks that the map is most likely an 18th or 21st century forgery.
On the lower left corner of the map, the cartographer wrote "(this chart is) drawn by Mo Yi Tong, a subject (of the Qing Dynasty), in mid-autumn of the year of Qianlong Gui Wei (the Chinese name of year 1763), by imitating a world chart made in the sixteen year of Ming Yongle (the Chinese name of year 1418) showing the barbarians paying tribute (to Ming Dynasty)".
On the upper left corner there is an important note, which reads, "The descriptions without red circles are not the notes of the original chart (i.e. 1418 general chart of the integrated world)".
Accordingly, the descriptions with red circles are the original notes from the 1418 world chart showing the barbarians paying tribute.
The following are the descriptions with red circles:
A note recorded on the Pacific Ocean state that "In the thirteen year of Yongle Emperor (1415), following the emissary, Eunuch Ma Sanbao [i.e. Zheng He, who, like many Muslims in China had the surname Ma] and other persons (I) went to those barbarian countries including Bangla [Bengal] and arrived at Hormuz as well as other barbarian countries, the imperial edicts were preached and rewards were granted. In the sixteen year of Yongle Emperor (1418) (I) came back to Beijing."
The note on the region of Alaska says, "The people living in this area are similar to Qidan and Mongols, who feed on fish." This is a clear reference to the Eskimo.
The note on western America says, "The skin of the race in this area is black-red, and feathers are wrapped around their heads and waists. They are anthropophagous people [cannibals]." This note refers to the Native Americans.
There are two notes on South America: "The cities here were built with huge stones, therefore called stone cities"; and "The people here believe in the religion named 'Balaka', in which human beings are used as sacrificial victims, and people pay obeisance to fire."
The first note refers to the Inca Empire, since the cities of the Inca Empire were usually built on mountain or plateau with huge stones.
The second note refers to ancient Peru, where one of the native cultures was named "Paracas."
The note on Australia says, "The skin of the aborigine is also black. All of them are naked and wear bone articles around their waists. Those people also have anthropophagous habits."
The note on North Africa says, "There is a huge city here built with stones, the dimension of stones can be compared to those used by tomb of Qin Dynasty Emperor." (note: Qin Dynasty 221-206 B.C)
The note on South Africa says, "The skin of people here is like black lacquer. Their teeth are white, their lips are red, and their hairs are curled."
The note on Western Asia says: "All people of the cities in west of Jiayu Pass believe in Islam and Muhammad. Their temples are built with clay and stones, and walls of the temples are decorated with gemstone. People who want to go into the temple must bathe and change their clothes, such customs also exist in our middle kingdom, and it is so funny."
The note on the region between Asia and Europe says, "The shape of people eyes are round and within deeper eyeholes. Their heads are wrapped with scarf, their clothes loose, and their trousers long. Women here must wear veils when going out, or else be punished."
The note on Eastern Europe says, "People here mostly believe in God and their religion is called 'Jing.'
In the midst of the four countries is a Whirlpool into which there empty these four Indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is 4 degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogther. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic stone. And is as high as the clouds, so the Priest said, who had received the astrolabe from this Minorite in exchange for a Testament. And the Minorite himself had heard that one can see all round it from the Sea, and that it is black and glistening.The central mountain described by Mercator was know to mariners as the Rupes Nigra (Black Precipice) which was made of a black glistening material so magnetic that it could irresistibly attract the nails and other steel parts of sailing ships. All compass needles it was assumed pointed to this object.
? Gerard Mercator in a letter to John Dee
3. As to the "Map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" Professor Mao Pei-qi has stated "This map is a fake." His basis for saying this is that the character "zhi" in the title is erroneously written. Instead of using the "zhi" with an ear radical, it used the "zhi" with a speech radical. The complex forms of these characters are similar but the ancients would certainly not have confused them. A modern person who was trying to fake this, however, appears to have not had this knowledge and made the mistake of confusing them. In Shanghai dialect, the two characters are pronounced very similarly. Given that this map was bought in Shanghai, was it the case that a modern faker was confused by this dialectical similarity?My feeling at the moment is that the map probably is a genuine 18th century map which has been defaced by a modern forger ? i.e. it's the nastiest and saddest kind of forgery because it erases a piece of the real past in order to fabricate a different more profitable one.
An even greater error is that frequently on the map there appears a number followed by the character "yu" (meaning "plus" or "more than"). In simplified characters there is only one way of writing this character, but in this case, the form which would have been used in pre-modern times was not the one which is used. We can thus affirm that there is no way such simplified characters would have appeared in either the "Overall Map of the Geography of all Under Heaven" or a "Map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court"
This is an iron-clad proof for passing judgement on the "Overall Map of the Geography of all Under Heaven". Just on the basis of these erroneous characters we can make a firm assessment as to whether or not the "Overall Map of the Geography of all Under Heaven" is a fake.
The foreign experts cited are unfamiliar or only slightly familiar with Chinese characters and possibly missed these problems with the characters. This is understandable. The collector himself also is probably only familiar with simplified characters and his confusion is also explicable. However, those experts who assessed the "map as being at least 100 years old", and could not even pick out the simplified characters which had only been in use for 50 years, cannot be excused. They are simply swindlers!!!
4. On the top-left of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all Under Heaven" there is a panel which reads "Those annotations without red borders are not from the original map" Liu Gang explains it thus: This means that there were some annotations which were on the original "Map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" and some were added later by the copier. The original annotations were enclosed with a red border. In other words, all those annotations within red borders were from the original map. Liu Gang, his connoisseur experts and even his foreign experts managed to miss the fact that in three places there are red borders around the "Great Qing Ocean"!! The "Great Qing" [Manchu Dynasty 1644-1912] did not replace the Ming until 256 years after this map was supposedly drawn. Are all these people colour-blind?
FURTHER UPDATE: National Geographic are running this story on the map: "Chinese Columbus" Map Likely Fake, Experts Say
"If this is a 1418 map, it's a whole style very much different than any 1418 map that I've seen," said John Hébert, the chief of the Geography and Map Division at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Hébert, who has only viewed a small reproduction of the map online, says the map's depiction of the Earth with China not at the center raises a red flag.
"I don't know of any entity at any time, Chinese or otherwise, that did not usually center their cartographic pieces with them[selves] in the middle," he said.
The map's depiction of California as an island also suggests that it could be a copy of a French 17th-century map, Hébert said.
"The other thing that's troubling is the shape of California as an island. That is too much, taken out of what I've seen by French mapping for that [17th] century ? [It] almost begs as if we're looking at a 17th-century French world map that had been converted."
Yep.